Releasing wolbachia in Rio de Janeiro

Share

Copy the link

I was happily enjoying a long holiday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and had totally forgotten about publishing, viruses, or online communities. That was until I got the ferry from Araribóia in Niterói across Guanabara Bay to the beautiful city of Rio and spotted this poster plastered across the closed doors of the ferry terminal.

Even with my limited (although now much improved) Portuguese, I could make out the words "Dengue", "Wolbachia" and "Aedes aegypti". I then spotted the familiar logo of Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, known as Fiocruz, Brazil's top health institute, with historic headquarters in Rio and labs across Brazil.

A bit of further research led me to the work of Luciano Moreira at Fiocruz, who is leading a project to release Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegypti in three suburbs of Rio and one in Niterói, Rio's neighbouring city across the bay. The goal is that by infecting the mosquitoes with Wolbachia, they can no longer transit the numerous viruses that plague the area: primarily dengue, zika and chikungunya.

Wolbachia, a bacteria that naturally exists in some insects, is a very well studied and exciting form of biological control that is being tested in various cities across the world. Public engagement is key and so the researchers have met regularly with local residents to talk about any fears that they have and to educate them about the viruses, the mosquito and the bacteria they are releasing. Hence the posters in the ferry terminal.

From my random sampling of friends and family in Niterói, many had heard of the project and of Wolbachia, so my entirely unscientific analysis suggests that the public engagement is working.

More information about the project is on the Eliminate Dengue website (in Portuguese - but google translate does an adequate job) and a list of their publications is also online, including a recent paper in Cell Host & Microbe showing that that Wolbachia infected Aedes aegypti are resistant to Zika virus infection.

I am Head of Communities & Engagement at Springer Nature with a role to provide training, guidance and support on our online communities. I worked at BioMed Central for 5 years, where I launched and developed new open access journals, including Microbiome, Zoological Letters and Cancer & Metabolism. Before that, I spent 8 years in research with a PhD in influenza virus innate immunity from the University of Reading and Health Protection Agency and then as a postdoc at Imperial College London researching smallpox vaccines, viral ion channels and apoptosis. Please get in touch with any training needs, technical questions or general comments!

This community is not edited and does not necessarily reflect the views of Nature Research. Nature Research makes no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on this community is accurate, complete or up to date, and to the fullest extent permitted by law all liability is excluded.

Please sign in or register for FREE

Sign in to Nature Research Microbiology Community

Register to Nature Research Microbiology Community

The Nature Research Microbiology Community provides a forum for the sharing and discussion of ideas and opinions about microbiology. Through posts, discussion, image and video content, the community space can be used by members to communicate with each other, and with editors, about topics ranging from the science itself through to policy, society and day to day life. It is also a place to learn more about the activities of Nature Microbiology's editors and the policies and practices of the journal.